Three mosques in Melbourne

By Tajuddin Rasdi

CONTINUED FROM  LAST WEEK'S CCN....

The Coburg mosque

The last mosque we visited was the Coburg mosque a few miles from the city centre.

As I had accompanied the students and prompted them with questions for two days, I decided to leave them to deal with the third mosque on their own.

That night at our hotel, I ordered a briefing on what had happened at the Coburg mosque. The students said near the Zuhr prayers at about 1pm, a few men with long beards wearing traditional Afghan-style robes had come to the mosque. The men immediately asked the students to explain what they were doing there.

When they explained their project, the men refused to allow them in, saying they had nothing to show in their little mosque. They then laughed and said since the students were from Malaysia, they should visit the mosques there which were more beautiful and had more splendid designs. The students could get no further cooperation from them and were forced to leave without entering the mosque.

As part of their research, they then interviewed three non-Muslims who had lived in the neighbourhood for more than three years. None of the interviewees had ever set foot in the mosque or even knew of the Muslims who had been living there for over several decades. The fenced-up, one-storey mosque with its three-storey high minaret stood totally isolated from the rest of the neighbourhood.

We had met Muslims who were open and trying very hard to accommodate their religious life with that of the Melbourne community. But there were also those who appeared more closed-minded, who were given sanctuary via immigration laws by non-Muslims and allowed to make a living but who refused to be part of the community for fear that it would compromise their traditional understanding of the religion.

Later, I found that these Muslims do not even mix with the Muslims in the Islamic Council of Victoria membership.

The purpose of this article is to tell non-Muslims in Malaysia that there is another world of Islam that comes closer to the prophetic Islam. The Umno-PAS Islam is not the one. The Rahmatan-lil-Alamin concept that Muhajid Yusof Rawa keeps spouting does not yet exist in any community in Malaysia.

The seeds for the future of Islam lie in non-Muslim countries like Britain and Australia, not Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei or even Saudi Arabia.

It is the intent of this article to appeal to Malaysians for patience in the midst of the anti-ICERD rally which drew thousands of Malays on a non-issue of Islam. It is also an effort to convey that there is actually another Islam worthy of democracy, worthy of a civil society, worthy of a dignified existence for all, and worthy of a compassionate community humbled by the majesty of God in his mystery, wisdom and love for all.
  

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Australian government’s strategy of vilifying Muslims can be used against all of us

By Joumanah El Matrah

While 2018 was not a story about counter-terrorism laws, they brought an uncomfortable focus to a government that accepts no limits to its power to cleave and quarter society at will. The final days of parliament did not institutionalise protections, instead institutionalising fear.

The government used these final days to bully, harass, intimidate and politicise any opposition to an encryption bill allowing security agencies access to our encrypted private messages. While it attacked those who opposed the bill or sought greater consideration of its impact, it also proposed amendments to extend the powers and conditions under the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Act 2015 to strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship. It was yet additional evidence of an Australian government with already considerable and unprecedented power in this arena, intending to give itself more.

Terrorism may indeed be an exceptional set of crimes which require an exceptional set of laws and powers, but this government is not prepared to explain, after almost 80 counter terrorism laws, why more are still required.

In 2011, Professor Kent Roach of the University of Toronto, in his comparative study of antiterrorism laws across the US, UK, Canada and Australia, described the Australian government response to terrorism as one of “legislative activism” – in part because Australia’s response exceeded that of Canada, the UK and the US, but also because “Australia’s hyper-legislation strained the ability of the parliamentary opposition and civil society to keep up, let alone provide effective opposition to, the relentless legislative output.”

Since 2001, our failure to mount any meaningful resistance to the unforgiving legislative agenda of the government as it gave itself and its security services unprecedented powers has rested on the belief that those laws would only apply to Muslims. But this view misunderstands both the threat of terrorism and the threat of the laws themselves and what our parliament has become.

It is hard to miss that fear and control are increasingly the defining feature of our government and crossbench.

In the litany of abuses and the raging white noise emanating from parliament about Muslims, commencing with Liberal senator Jim Molan’s sharing of Britain First’s anti-Muslim video, to Pauline Hanson’s numerous stop Muslim migration efforts and her wearing of the burqa in parliament buffoonery, to Fraser Anning’s maiden speech, to the government’s vote on it’s OK to be white – it has all seemed that a particular type of racialised madness has taken hold of both our houses of parliament.

The vilification of Muslims and racial politicalisation of minorities as a political strategy has not remained within the confines of federal parliament, it also became a key feature of the Victorian state election, barely concealed in the rhetoric of African gangs violence and white people hiding in their homes for fear of gangs. Throughout all of this, migration has been presented as a consistent and constant threat to our way of life. This is a picture of us as a nation under attack from strangers within and at our borders.

Having tested the limits of its power to vilify and marginalise Muslims, the government has been slowly moving to everyone else.

A case in point is the government’s decision to force us to vote on marriage equality, something it knew already had our broad support, and as 2018 ends, we are told that the rights of religious groups must be protected from LGBTI children attending religious schools. The halls of power, both religious and political, have now pitted themselves against children.

After the Bourke street attack, prime minister Scott Morrison called on Muslims to do more – in fact he held Muslims partially responsible by suggesting that they were not doing enough. As an experienced minister, he would know that the role of Muslims in preventing terrorism is limited and that communities were already active in that space. Since 2001, Muslim leaders, activists and professionals have acquired a certain political acumen and, even in the face of irrationality and farce that is now a constant feature of our parliament’s approach to Muslims, community actors have nonetheless persevered in their work. Most of them understood that Morrison’s message was not to Muslims but about them, and most of them will continue to work with government, because they see their efforts to ensure social cohesion as a moral imperative, not as a service to the government.

The cost for the Muslim community of constantly trying to placate people’s anger and fear by justifying itself is increasingly apparent. It is rare, especially for Victorian Muslims, to turn their back on a meeting with government. This is a sign not of anger, but of a community that has no hope in the political system.

But the fight here is no longer one about or for Muslims. In allowing our politicians free rein to do as they will with Muslims – criminalise, surveil and pathologise them – those strategies are now available for use not just against minorities, but as the encryption laws attest, all of us. 
 

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How Islam Spread Throughout the World

By Hassam Munir

CONTINUED FROM  LAST WEEK'S CCN....

I: The Spread of the Message
 

Daʿwah
 

Daʿwah, or the act of inviting others to engage with the message of Islam, follows naturally from the Muslim’s obligatory concern for humanity’s success and salvation. “Invite (udʿū) all to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and kind advice” (16:125) is a clear Qurʾānic directive to Muslims.[3] Allāh also informs Prophet Muhammad ﷺ of his mission in the Qurʾān (33:45-6): “O Prophet! We have sent you as a witness, and a deliverer of good news, and a warner, and a caller (dāʿī) to [the Way of] Allāh by His command, and a beacon of light.” After the Prophet ﷺ, every member of the Muslim ummah shares in the responsibility of daʿwah to the extent they are able.

An early dāʿī was Muʿādh ibn Jabal, sent by the Prophet ﷺ to give daʿwah in Yemen and Hadramawt. The importance of this task is indicated in a letter sent by the Prophet to his contacts in Yemen after dispatching Muʿādh, in which he said, “I have sent you my best man.”[4] According to the historian Ibn Ishāq, the Prophet ﷺalso instructed Muʿādh on the manner of daʿwah before he left, including the following: “Be tolerant, not harsh; spread the word, and do not alienate them.”[5] Bukhārī and Muslim also recorded a version of this narration.[6]

Muʿādh was constantly on the move throughout the region, not settling in one place for too long, so as to maximize the reach of his daʿwah.[7] It is noteworthy that this same region soon became the point of departure for traveling scholars and merchants who introduced Islam to many parts of the world, such as Madagascar, parts of Southeast Asia (as discussed below), and elsewhere.[8] As one scholar has noted, “there exists archeological evidence pointing to a Yemeni mosque—what exactly that means is open to debate—in Quangzhou from the eleventh century, and to a tombstone from Mogadishu dated 1358.”[9]

The role of the daʿwah efforts of Sufi Muslims in the spread of Islam is widely recognized. An archeological study of the oldest surviving Islamic monuments in present-day western Kazakhstan concluded that these were “built under the influence of the Sufi strand of Islam, which retained its influence in the Kazakh steppes until the early fifteenth century,”[10] indicating that Sufism played an important role in the initial spread of Islam in this region. This reinforces earlier suggestions of the influence of traveling Sufis such as Abū’l-Hasan al-Kalamātī and Abū’l-Hasan al-Usbānīkathī (both fl. 10th century) in the spread of Islam in Central Asia, particularly during the period of Sāmānid rule (819-999).[11]

Similarly, Sufism played a leading role in the Islamization of Kashmir, a disputed territory in the foothills of the Himalayas with a population that is currently upwards of 95% Muslim.[12] It is difficult to pinpoint the beginning of the Islamization of Kashmir, but there are records of a Syrian Muslim military general arriving there, possibly as a prisoner of war, as early as 711.[13] There are also records of Kashmir’s Hindu kings requesting Islamic scholars to be sent to their courts, ordering the Qur’an to be translated into the Kashmiri language, and employing Muslims in their court administration and army.[14]

However, the more precisely traceable history of Islam in Kashmir dates to 1323, when the Buddhist ruler of Kashmir, Lha (also known as Rinchen), “subjected himself to the teachings of the religion of Mustafa [i.e., the Prophet ﷺ], and the right principles of the truthful path of Murtaza [i.e., ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib], and embraced the Islamic religion with sincerity and conviction.”[15] Lha (after conversion, Mālik Sadr al-Dīn) was an “inquisitive and alert” young man, “fond of the company of learned men,” and he had been inspired during a meeting with a traveling Sufi scholar known as Bulbul Shah (d. 1327), reportedly because he found that Islam was “simple, free from useless ceremonies, caste, and priesthood.”[16]

Mālik died shortly after his conversion, but not before he helped Bulbul Shah establish a khanqah (a Sufi school) and a langar khāna (community kitchen) that fed the poor of all backgrounds twice a day. Many Kashmiris converted at the hands of Bulbul Shah.[17] One of his students, Ahmad, later became the chief Islamic scholar of Kashmir under Shah Mīr, Mālik’s former chief minister and also a Muslim, who came to power in 1339.[18] Thus began the Shah Mīrī (or Swati) dynasty; his descendants ruled Kashmir for the next two centuries. It was during this time that another Sufi scholar, Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī al-Hamdānī (d. 1385), came to the region to teach Islam, ushering in the second wave of da‘wah to Islam in Kashmir. In addition to Kashmir, the widely-traveling Hamdānī is known for his da‘wah in parts of Syria, Iraq, Khawarzm, Central Asia, India, and possibly even Sarandīp (Sri Lanka).[19]

A prominent example of Sufi daʿwah is that of the Ba ʿAlawi tarīqah (order) started by Muhammad ibn ʿAlī al-Faqīh al-Muqaddam (d. 1255) of Hadramawt in Yemen; hence the Ba ʿAlawis are also referred to as Hadramīs. Due in large part to a shift in trade routes due to the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258 (discussed in detail below), starting in the 14th century, members of the Ba ʿAlawi tarīqah increasingly traveled to the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago via India for trade, migration, and daʿwah.[20] As Ulrike Freitag has noted in her study of Islam in this region, “the emergence of Sufism, and from the twelfth century onwards the Sufi orders, offered religious practices which were attractive to non-Muslims as well. Charismatic Sufis who knew how to read and write, who practiced medicine […] drew Muslims and non-Muslims alike into their circles.”[21]

Other reasons for why the Sufi daʿwah of the Ba ʿAlawi was so effective in this region―given that some 250 million Muslims live in Southeast Asia today―are outlined elsewhere in this article, though more research on their impact is needed. As Syed Farid Alatas has noted, discussion of their daʿwah has been “conspicuously absent in the literature on the history of Islam in Southeast Asia.”[22]

Some indicators of the effectiveness of daʿwah in the spread of Islam are seen in the frantic measures taken by some authorities to try to prevent Muslims from carrying out daʿwah work. The enslaved Muslims brought by early Spanish colonizers to the “New World,” for example, often escaped and ran away, finding refuge in Native American settlements.[23] The Spanish authorities feared both the spread of Islam in their colonies and the prospect of joint African–Native American rebellions.[24] The depth of their anxiety was reflected in the severity of punishments; one runaway slave who was plausibly Muslim was recaptured and boiled to death in Costa Rica in 1540, and two Muslims were condemned (one to death, one to life in prison) in 1560 for “having practiced and spread Islam in Cuzco, Peru.”[25] On five different occasions in the 16th century, Spanish authorities passed legislation in efforts to limit the influx of Muslim slaves into the colonies; they were described as an “inconvenience,” at least partially due to their daʿwah activity.[26]

Following in this tradition, Muslims have given daʿwah in different ways virtually everywhere they have gone, and it is therefore not far-fetched to claim that daʿwah has been the most important factor in the spread of Islam. Every example of conversion to Islam that is described in this article involves daʿwah in some form..

TO BE CONTINUED IN NEXT WEEK'S CCN....

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UK's Oldest Mosque: Incredible pictures shine a light on Britain’s oldest mosque dating back to the reign of Queen Victoria

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